Chapter 306: Chapter 306: Life and tiara

This was an emergency.

Not the headline kind. Not sirens, explosions, or breaking news banners. The quieter, more exhausting kind, where every problem technically counted as “handled,” but only because Christopher spent his days stitching disasters back together with his bare hands.

He’d been jumping from crisis to crisis for so long it barely even registered as escalation anymore. Dax had finally settled down, finally, after making absolutely sure Varlen understood something very clearly: the only reason Rohan was still politically stable was Heather, and cooperation in locating Benedict and Adonis was not a polite diplomatic favor. It was an expectation.

That call should’ve blown up into a diplomatic nightmare.

It didn’t.

And the reason it didn’t was Christopher.

He’d been there the whole time, calm where Dax was volatile, diplomatic where Dax was blunt, and supportive enough to turn what should’ve been a threat into a structured agreement. He kept the conversation rational, framed things like policy instead of retaliation, and transformed something dangerously close to international pressure into coordinated collaboration.

Crisis contained, well… At least on paper.

Unfortunately, that was yesterday’s emergency.

And the modern world had never shown Christopher even the faintest inclination to let him rest before the next one arrived.

Marianne and Heather had decided that they were staying a few more weeks, at least until after the public wedding. No one had actually invited them to extend their visit. That didn’t matter. They simply informed everyone that they would be present, smiling like this was the most natural outcome in the world.

“Of course we’re staying,” Heather had declared, bright-eyed and terrifyingly earnest. “I’m going to be his flower girl.”

Christopher had blinked at her. Slowly.

“You… are fifteen,” he’d said carefully.

Heather beamed. “Yes, but I’m royal fifteen.”

He had chosen not to engage with that logic for the sake of his remaining brain cells.

Ethan had been transferred to Saha’s imperial medical center, tucked behind layers of security and specialists who spoke in measured tones and avoided definitive statements. He was stable, recovering, and finally out of danger, but nowhere near well enough to be dragged into public life yet. Attending the wedding, standing under flashing cameras, dealing with strangers and noise and the constant weight of political attention… that was out of the question. He needed time, quiet, and safety. For now, the world would simply have to wait for him to come back on his own terms.

Then Sahir found out Serathine and Cressida were coming back to “assist” with the Palatine side of the guest list… and promptly went through all five stages of administrative grief.

He panicked. Calmed down. Panicked again.

He stood in his office with three phones ringing, two aides hovering, and an open document titled Revised Seating Strategy: Diplomatic Minefield Edition, while silently calculating how many international incidents could occur over floral arrangements and seating proximity to political rivals. Serathine meant elegance, pressure, and terrifyingly competent social maneuvering. Cressida meant charm, ruthless efficiency, and the ability to turn any event into a spectacle people would talk about for decades.

Together, they meant chaos disguised as perfection.

Sahir straightened his glasses, inhaled like a man preparing for surgery, and requested additional staff, backup planners, and possibly divine intervention.

Killian, on the other hand, had reached a state of serene resignation. As long as his responsibilities were flawless, everything else could burn in a dignified, well-coordinated manner. The rest of the circus wasn’t his concern. His priorities were painfully simple: Christopher and Dax.

If they were safe, stable, and where they needed to be, then the rest of the world could scream, panic, and implode in the background without him losing a minute of sleep.

And one week before the wedding, somehow-miraculously, absurdly-Christopher found himself facing new problems.

Two of them.

The first was sitting in his hands.

A tiara.

Technically, he’d known it existed. He had nodded in meetings. He’d smiled politely when Dax mentioned “a symbolic piece.” He had mentally pictured something elegant, wearable, and maybe a little ridiculous in the affectionate, sentimental way Dax tended to be when he loved too much.

This… was not that.

This was an engineering project masquerading as jewelry.

A crown that transformed into a collar. A collar that became earrings. Earrings that could shift into a ring. The ring was enormous. The sort of enormous that belonged in museum vaults guarded by lasers and heavily armed men with no sense of humor. If he dropped it, it would probably dent the floor.

Christopher stared at it, expression flat.

“Right,” he muttered to himself. “Okay. This is… subtle. Completely understated. Barely noticeable. Definitely not a declaration of territorial cosmic ownership.”

He turned it in his fingers.

It caught the light and nearly blinded him.

’Perfect.’

It matched Dax’s eyes. Naturally. Because why buy jewelry when you can buy a symbolic stellar event?

He closed his eyes for a second and inhaled.

“My husband,” he thought, somewhere between fond and exhausted, “has absolutely lost his mind.”

There was a soft cough nearby.

Sahir.

He had that gentle, careful tone people used for distressed animals and powerful political figures on the verge of losing composure.

“It cannot be returned,” Sahir reminded quietly. “It’s now classified as a national heirloom.”

Christopher opened his eyes slowly.

“Of course it is,” he said, voice perfectly calm in the way that suggested he was seconds from sitting down and screaming into his hands. “Because God forbid we have normal sentimental gestures. No, we must commit architectural crimes in gemstone form.”

Sahir adjusted his glasses, trying his best to be supportive and failing because… he was Sahir. “It’s… quite beautiful.”

“Yes,” Christopher agreed flatly. “So is a nuclear reactor. I don’t want to wear either of them on my head.”

He paused, lifting the ring vaguely toward the ceiling.

“How much does this even cost?”

Sahir did not answer. Which was an answer.

Christopher sighed.

“Fine,” he muttered. “I’ll wear it. I’ll smile. I’ll pretend my neck isn’t going to dislocate. I will embody grace, dignity, and mild emotional suffering.”

He looked down at the glittering, impossible thing again.

“Fifty million crowns on my skull,” he whispered in despair. “At this point, if I trip walking down the aisle, the economy will collapse.”

But the second problem currently involved two living creatures staring at him.

One of them was Dax. Which was normally fine. Most of the time.

His sweet, loving, impossibly large husband stood there with the expression of a man who had absolutely done something and was very proud of it. Tall, calm, radiating affection, and dangerous in all the ways that made the world nervous and Christopher’s heart feel like a liability.

The other creature sat beside him.

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